Talking
of the Spanish government, Spaniards are inured to the fact that no
one resigns for anything here, regardless of the accusation made
against either them personally or the department for which they're
responsible. And many look to Britain for a better example of how
things should be done. Which is a tad ironic as the the national
lament in the UK these days is that "Doing
the decent thing [resigning] is all but extinct in our self-serving public
services".
We
have a new shop in Pontevedra - one selling spices, rices and other
wonderful stuff from sacks. Not quite the spice market in Bombay but
close enough. They even have Basmati rice, cardamom pods, crystallised ginger and
star anise with its divine smell. A little bit of heaven, which I
shall now frequent regularly. Until it closes because Galicians don't
like anything new or, worse, 'hot'(picante)
By the way - I wrote 'anise' in the Spanish way - anis
- and my spellcheck immediately told me it should be 'anus'.
Talking
of spelling . . I was shocked last night to see a BBC report
displaying 2 spelling errors. The first was clearly a transposition
typo but the second was 'prosecuter' for 'prosecutor' and was clearly
not
a typo. Putting aside the errors, don't they have a spellcheck, for
God's sake? It reminded me of the error-strewn comments of teachers
responding to the wonderful blog of Frank Chalk. Hardly surprising, though,
when spelling is no longer taught and when teachers who can
spell are discouraged from correcting pupils who can't. Let alone their colleagues.
And
talking of shops . . . One of the several sweet shops in the city
centre has closed, as has at least one more of the 18-20 jewellers
shops I noted several months ago. I will now survey the others.
The
Galician brothel-owner being prosecuted for employing a 15 year old
Rumanian girl has defended himself - or tried to - on the grounds
that his clients demand 'fresh meat'. Writing in El
País, a columnist regretted that
his is not an isolated case. But there's not much mileage in Spain's
politicians doing anything about the disproportionate prostitution
that besmirches Spain's international image. Every few years, the
press do a few moralising articles on it and then all goes quiet
again, until the next time. Higher priorities.
Talking
of which . . . One of my neighbours was telling me yesterday that
corruption ranks much lower as a concern for her that 'structural
problems' such as the parlous state of university education here.
According to her, the professors are ancient and averse to new
technologies and methods; the books used now are those she read to
study medicine 30 years ago; and the pupils are idle. Listening to
this, it was not hard to understand why there's no Spanish university
in the top 200 worldwide.
Finally
. . . In the bike shop next door to one of my barrio's brothels,
there is a bike in the window, selling at a discounted price of
€2,300.
Even though it's got no pedals.
But
it's not the most expensive, as there was another one in the window retailing for €2,800. You've come a long way, baby.
And
talking of bikes . . . Keep your eye out for the motor-cyclist to the
left of this screen.
No comments:
Post a Comment